Stanley Yelnats is unlucky. Most millennials and quite a good chunk of Generation Z are well aware of this truth, and that this bad luck can be blamed on Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. Kids in 2023 are also learning of Stanley’s bad luck, as it took me a few weeks on my library’s waitlist to get a hold of Louis Sachar’s beloved children’s classic: Holes. Over two decades after its initial release, the book is still a hot commodity, though it has had its share of controversy. From a Google search, one can find that parents raised concerns about this book and got it banned from classrooms as early as 2009, citing the book’s violence as inappropriate for children. Today, when book banning in classrooms has become commonplace and a media firestorm, Holes, as beloved as it is,stands as an early example of this practice.

The books being banned today are an eclectic bunch. The reasons for banning them vary, from sexual content to language to violence. There has been understandable backlash to any book banning, especially in cases where books dealing with race, particularly books about African American experiences, have been banned. The most recent high-profile example of this being when a South Carolina high school teacher was told to stop using Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book on growing up Black in America in her class when students reached out to the school board stating that they were made to feel “uncomfortable” and “ashamed to be Caucasian.” Some parents called for the teacher to be fired. While it is reasonable that parents should have some involvement in what their children read, the government allowing the banning of books written by Black authors or anything that may make them “uncomfortable” has emboldened community members to attack any teacher or author that dares to suggest the United States is a racist country or suffers from systemic racism.

Holes, while written by a white author, is a book about systemic racism and how children suffer within the prison industrial complex. I first read this book in the third grade of my conservative Catholic school in Florida. I wonder if it is still on the reading list. Given the prevalence of book banning, and Holes being an early banned book at certain schools before it became a hot topic, I wanted to return to a childhood favorite of mine and many others. After re-reading it for the first time in many years, as well as giving the movie (the screenplay of which was also written by Sachar) a re-watch, I can confirm the story deserves its place as a classic of children’s literature. The book and movie deftly discuss in a way children can easily understand many important and difficult topics, such as how private prisons seek to enrich themselves under the guise of rehabilitating prisoners.

While the Texas based Camp Green Lake, where children dig holes for their supposed rehabilitation, is a fantastical setting, it is perfect for a complex message directed at a young audience. The campers are not digging to “build character” as Mr. Sir claims. They’re digging for treasure that will be handed to the Warden, the owner of the dried-up lake. The Warden inherited the land from her grandfather, a man who had once led a lynch mob and shot a Black man in cold blood. This book is a critique of prison labor, private prisons, and systemic racism, but where I have always found it to be the most radical is in its portrayal of the boys at this work camp, and the empathy it allows them.

Stanley is our point of view character throughout the story. He is a lead most readers can connect with, especially at a young age. He is shy and awkward and struggles to make friends. He is also a fat kid, which the movie unfortunately changed when they cast the thin Shia LaBeouf in the role. Sachar implies that Stanley is Jewish, though it is mostly ambiguous. Sachar, who is Jewish, named Stanley’s pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather Elya, which is Sachar’s Hebrew name. The movie makes the Yelnats Jewish identity more explicit. Director Andrew Davis is himself Jewish and stated that he “detected a Jewish family” when he read the book, believing that the Yelnats immigration experience and struggle in America reflected that of the Jewish experience. Davis made the book’s Jewish implications explicit in his movie by casting Jewish actors Henry Winkler and Nathan Davis to play Stanley’s quite delightful father and grandfather, respectively. A sharp listener will notice Davis’s grandfather character, who was invented for the movie, make remarks in Yiddish. LaBeouf also comes from a Jewish family.

Sachar allows the reader to feel pity for Stanley and frustration with an unfair justice system from the first few pages when it is revealed that Stanley was arrested and convicted for a crime he did not commit. He was simply unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. This, of course, is nothing unique within the American justice system, particularly for impoverished people like Stanley, whose family cannot afford a lawyer, and even more so for Black and Brown Americans. Stanley begins the story rightfully frustrated that he has been sent to a labor camp by the state when he did nothing wrong, blaming his great-great grandfather for his bad luck. Stanley is justified in his anger, and the story never reprimands him for his feelings. His journey throughout the story, as the director also put it, is one of learning to understand his own family struggle and how this helps him empathize with other people who are struggling.

At Camp Green Lake, Stanley is faced with other boys who face great obstacles and bad luck of their own. The crimes they may have committed which I discuss here are not ever disclosed in Holes (save for Zero) but were either revealed in Sachar’s sequel, Small Steps, in the movie, or otherwise revealed and put the Holes wiki pages. We have X-Ray, the leader of D-tent. He is a Black boy who one presumes has been at Camp Green Lake the longest of the boys and enjoys his position as the top of the food chain. X-Ray comes across as the smartest of the group, often rattling off random facts to correct the other boys. Given his brains, it seems fitting that he was arrested for running a scam: selling bags of dried parsley to people who believed they were buying marijuana. Personally, X-Ray is my favorite, and I appreciate that the movie was a bit more sympathetic to him. Next comes Armpit, who may have been Sachar’s favorite given he is the main character of Small Steps. He is another Black camper, the funny guy of the group, and reads as X-Ray’s second in command, perhaps because he has been at the camp the second longest amount of time. Armpit was arrested for fighting two other boys over a bucket of popcorn at a movie theater.

Squid is one of the more rambunctious boys in D-tent. He is a white boy with a smart mouth who seems to resent Stanley’s positive relationship with his parents. While the book does not allow for too much insight into Squid, there is a notable scene when Stanley wakes up to hear Squid crying. In the movie, Squid states that his father is absent and his mother is an alcoholic. Squid was arrested for fighting a police officer. The D-tent member who Stanley clashes with the most is Zigzag, a zany white boy who the movie indicates suffers from mental health problems. While Zigzag was arrested for setting off firecrackers at school, he seems to be more prone to violence than others as he picks a fight with Stanley. Next is Magnet, who always came across in the movie as the sweetest member of the group, and the one who struggles the most with his place toward the bottom of the pecking order. Magnet is Hispanic, perhaps Mexican, and was arrested for stealing a puppy from a pet store. Finally, we have Zero, who is the co-protagonist of our story. Zero is a Black boy who faces perhaps the greatest obstacles at Camp Green Lake, as nobody respects him. He is the target of frequent harassment by their counselor Pendanski, and the other boys bully him, even putting Stanley ahead of him in the line to get water despite Zero having been at camp longer. This, it is implied, is because Zero refuses to speak or otherwise interact with anyone at the camp, leading people to believe he is stupid and earning him the nickname “Zero.” His silence, we learn, is due to his dislike of answering questions and is his way of refusing to cooperate, particularly with Pendanski, who is most put off by Zero’s muteness.

These boys are not angels. It is apparent that they made mistakes that landed them at Camp Green Lake, though these mistakes hardly warranted months of hard labor in the desert. Further, Sachar allows for the arrests of all the boys, even though we know very little about what happened, to remain suspect. As Stanley was convicted of a crime he did not commit and could not afford a lawyer. Zero was arrested for stealing shoes when he needed them while homeless. Still, the boys are not particularly kind. They bully Zero, and Zigzag could have done great harm to Stanley when they fought. Though it is important to note that their behavior worsens out of understandable frustration when Stanley receives help from Zero in digging his hole while the rest of them work alone. Despite their behavior, the book never paints them as the villains of the story, but victims alongside Stanley and Zero. Is it any wonder they are not the kindest of people when they perform backbreaking labor with little water in the hot sun under armed guard every day? They are also physically abused by the authority figures. The Warden at one point draws blood from Armpit with a rake. Squid is thrown to the floor by Mr. Sir for daring to ask how he got scratches on his face. These boys are allowed little help for their rehabilitation and instead are regularly faced with insults, violence, or threats of violence from those who are supposedly turning them into “good boys.” Even Stanley, Sachar states in the book, becomes hardened by his experience at Camp Green Lake. He loses some of his goodness.

Camp Green Lake is an imaginary setting, but the abuse faced by the campers reflects the experience in real life juvenile detention facilities. Almost half of youth containment facilities in the United States are privately owned. Research suggests that for-profit prisons are associated with increased violence towards prisoners. Abusive practices in the prisons include beating handcuffed youth, unsanitary food, regular sexual assault, etc. Another example being guard-instigated fights between prisoners. Zigzag and Stanley’s fight in Holes appears inspired by these incidents. As when Pendanski, who I’ve always read as the most nefarious of the Camp Green Lake authority figures despite his “nice guy” demeanor, sees Zigzag trying to provoke Stanley into fighting him. Instead of stopping it, Pendanski encourages it, telling Stanley to hit Zigzag back. Here they are at a camp that is supposed to “build the character” of juvenile delinquents, and their counselors are egging them on to hit each other for a power trip. Rehabilitation is not possible here. They only seek to further break these boys down in an abusive environment. Why wouldn’t they? Their presence in detention facilities is profitable.

The D-tent boys and the rest of the campers aren’t angels, it’s true, but that as Sachar always makes clear, that does not make the abuse they suffer justifiable. This is one of the most potent themes in the book. Criminals, adults and children alike, are often brushed off by society as deserving of whatever punishment they get. You break the law, you deserve punishment. It is this mindset, this detestation of perceived “criminals” that allows for an abusive system to thrive. In a world that sees the suffering of people out of prison, very little interest can be spared for the wellbeing of those that commit crimes and get locked up. Holes challenges us to rethink this indifference, to see the suffering of those who are essentially owned and live at the mercy of an abusive system.

This is a book full of convicted criminals that we are asked to empathize with, which is unique in children’s literature. We have the campers, but we also have Katherine Barlow, or Kissin’ Kate Barlow. Kate is certainly a more hardened criminal than any of the boys, not to mention she is an adult. She was a thief and a murderer for twenty years. As is the case with the Camp Green Lake boys, Sachar asks us to empathize with Kate by showing us why she became a murderer. Her lover Sam, a Black man, was murdered by Trout Walker, who owned the town and the lake. After witnessing this, she shoots the sheriff, who allowed Sam’s murder to happen. She then spends the rest of her life robbing people, banks, and committing murder. We are not privy to every person she killed, but it appears from the movie that it was predominantly white men. While her desire for vengeance against the powerful is understandable, she clearly also murdered those who did not deserve it. The first Stanley Yelnats was left stranded in the desert after she murdered his entire escort for his money. This, to be sure, cannot be justified, but Sachar doesn’t try to justify it. He just seeks for the reader to understand how she became this way. The rage that triggered her turning to a life of crime was directed at a system that allowed Sam to be murdered without consequence. Over a hundred years later, on that same lake, the descendent of Trout Walker was still able to abuse the marginalized. This is why the curse on the land prevails even after his death. It is notable that Sachar states that “God” punished Trout Walker and his land for what he did to Sam, but never suggests that God punished Kate for her violence.

Like Kissin’ Kate Barlow, the campers of Green Lake adopt nicknames and refuse to go by the names “society will recognize them by” perhaps in part as a rejection of a society that has rejected them. The boys of Camp Green Lake are a rough crowd, but they still look out for each other better than any authority at the camp. When Stanley almost stumbles into a fight with another camper at the beginning of the story, it is his fellow D-tent campers who defend him. When Zero chokes Zigzag in the fight that Pendanski instigated, it is Armpit that pulls Zero off him. Stanley and Zero’s relationship is the heart of the story, and they take care of each other more than anyone else. One issue I had with the book on this re-read was I would have liked to see more comradery between Stanley and the rest of D-tent, as he is a lot more solitary than I remembered until he finds friendship with Zero. Perhaps Sachar judged this to be a flaw in his book, or it’s a Hollywood revision, as the movie shows far more warmth among the members of D-tent. A more cliché Hollywood choice, sure, but I must say I prefer it. It allows us to better connect with all the campers.

It is in Stanley’s relationship with Zero where we can best see what the director of the movie, and Sachar as well, intended to be Stanley’s arc of empathizing with those around him. Stanley and Zero become friends, and through this friendship Stanley learns just how difficult Zero’s life has been. Zero was without his parents, homeless, and illiterate, along with being Camp Green Lake’s favorite punching bag. Throughout the book, the reader comes to realize that Zero, who is revealed as Hector Zeroni, is the descendant of Madame Zeroni, the Egyptian woman who placed the curse on the Yelnats family for Elya Yelnats’s failure to uphold his end of their agreement.

Over a hundred years later, another Yelnats and Zeroni find each other in Stanley and Hector. Perhaps the greatest irony of the book is that Hector, the descendant of the woman who cursed Stanley’s family, has a far more difficult life than Stanley. This is shown most starkly when Stanley and Hector realize they both frequented the same park in their hometown. Stanley used to play there. Hector used to sleep there. Upon hearing this, Stanley is shocked and saddened. Stanley’s struggles are never mitigated by the book or movie, but he comes to recognize his own privileges when exposed to the struggles of other campers, primarily Hector. Stanley has two parents that support him. He has a home. He has an education. He is white. Sachar is able to walk a careful line where the story never tells Stanley “Check your privilege and be happy” as he clearly faces his own struggles in a corrupt system. Holes is never telling us that we should just be grateful for what we have because it could be worse. Rather, it encourages us to understand our own struggle as well as the struggles our parents and ancestors faced, and through this we can better empathize with the people around us, who are facing their own battles, some greater than we can imagine.

When Stanley and Hector depart Camp Green Lake at the end of the story, Armpit (or in the movie, X-Ray) tells Stanley “You be careful out in the real world. Not everybody is as nice as us.” This reads as an acknowledgment of the kinship these boys shared at Camp Green Lake. It was far from a utopia, as they were living under an abusive authority, and the campers themselves were hardened against each other by this abuse. Still, they suffered through this together in a way that no one in the “real world” would understand. In the real world they were convicted criminals. Among each other, they were fellow kids who were dealt a bad hand and landed themselves in the middle of the desert to dig holes every day. We leave Camp Green Lake knowing that there was a brotherhood there, an understanding among boys who were cast out by society to suffer hard labor and abuse. The real world is cruel to these boys, making them into numbers with shovels rather than flesh and blood. Stanley can see this by the end of the story, sees their struggles and their humanity. Sachar dares to ask us, and the children who read or watch his story, to do the same.

Nothing thrills the spectators of any sport quite like a rivalry. College football rivalry weekend (Michigan vs Ohio State, FSU vs Florida, Auburn vs Alabama, etc.) is one of the most exciting events in the United States. The game no longer feels like just a game, but a chapter in a long running story unfolding before our eyes. It is because of this feeling that everyone loves a good rivalry. It can also just be fun to have a team to root against. Knowing all of this, it’s no wonder that the tennis rivalry between Swedish player Björn Borg and American John McEnroe captivated the world in 1980 and continues to enthrall those that learn the story.

Borg/McEnroe was not a rivalry based on animosity. Quite the opposite. Borg and McEnroe both held great respect for each other. Borg has gone on the record in recent years to state that he may have been the only player who truly respected McEnroe at the time. This was likely the case because McEnroe was famous for his outbursts, arguing with the umpires about calls (“You cannot be SERIOUS” perhaps most famously), breaking his rackets, taking swipes at crowds and other players. Whatever McEnroe felt at any given moment was written all over his face. As Peter Bodo of Tennis Magazine put it, “His life is flowing out of him like a river, and you can just read the truth right in what you’re seeing.” He did not recognize the decorum expected in tennis, a “gentlemen’s sport.” While this made him controversial, people were also riveted by him. He was an incredible talent, eventually making it to world number one, but his temper certainly earned him his press title of “Superbrat.” Every athlete gets frustrated and disagrees with calls, but McEnroe’s entitled nature and bad temper made for a wicked combination.

Borg was the opposite. Famous for his subdued nature, these seemingly contrary personalities were what made this rivalry so compelling. McEnroe argued with umpires; Borg never said a word. McEnroe’s face gave away every emotion; Borg’s face was a blank sheet of paper. McEnroe grunted and cried out with every stroke of his racket; Borg made his strokes in silence. They were Superbrat and Ice Borg; fire and ice.

This rivalry is the focus of Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen’s 2017 film Borg vs McEnroe starring Sverrir Gudnason and Shia LaBeouf as the titular players. The film follows these two tennis giants at the 1980 Wimbledon tournament, where they met in the finals and played one of the most famous matches in history. McEnroe and Borg have brushed off the film for its inaccuracies, as is their right given they are the subjects of the film. Some choices like Borg firing his coach in the middle of the tournament and McEnroe’s falling out with a fellow player and friend are surely fabricated. Despite this, the movie still makes for a gripping analysis of the relationship between these two men and the world’s perception of both of them. Borg and McEnroe met in the finals at Wimbledon in a historic match and both walked away forever changed.

Pedersen effectively captures with almost every frame of the film just how outwardly different Borg and McEnroe are. Borg usually comes on screen quietly; McEnroe’s scenes are often brought on with blaring music or other noise. Borg’s hotel room is clean as a whistle; McEnroe’s room makes him out to be a slob. Borg’s hair is long and smooth, effortlessly perfect; McEnroe’s is a long frizzy mess. One of the best shots in the movie is when both Borg and McEnroe are seated in their chairs during the final. The camera focuses on McEnroe as he wildly chugs his water, checks his shoe, and towels the sweat off his racket. Meanwhile Borg placidly sips his water behind him. Borg’s famous rituals get a lot of attention here (he always stayed in the same hotel room, sat in the same chair during a match, slept naked ten hours a night in a cold hotel room, and so on) and the film seems to suggest he may have OCD. But as Pedersen takes us through the story, we can see how the differences between the titular characters are largely superficial, and these two men were a lot more alike than what meets the eye. Certainly in their passion, but even in their temperament. This is largely seen in their fixation on each other, as they know throughout the film that they are each other’s greatest opponent.

Borg and McEnroe enter Wimbledon at two very different points in their respective careers. Borg, while only 24, is chasing his fifth Wimbledon title while McEnroe, earlier in his career, is still looking for his first. This difference is apparent throughout the film, with Borg feeling the weight of achieving the feat of five Wimbledon championships in a row, as well as his exhaustion from years of being made into a commodity by fans, reporters, and the tennis market writ large. McEnroe, being in the early stages of his career, has not yet experienced that and never would quite at same level as Borg, though it is apparent that he is desperate to achieve what Borg has.

McEnroe’s obsession with Borg borders on erotic at times. He cannot tear his eyes away from him during a press conference, a large picture of Borg hangs in his childhood bedroom, he expresses disinterest in women throwing themselves at him in favor of being told what Borg is doing right now, he stares transfixed at his name next to Borg’s in his makeshift Wimbledon bracket in his hotel room, etc. This choice only felt natural given that Borg was not only a tennis star in his heyday but a sex symbol. McEnroe himself has admitted to being struck by Borg’s appearance as a child, and that he, along with everyone else, wanted to look like Borg. The film naturally runs with this, with McEnroe not only imitating Borg’s appearance with his long hair and headband, but also wanting to imbody Borg’s very being, with his coolness under pressure and the love he had from the crowds.

Borg’s fascination with McEnroe is a different animal. Perhaps the best way to describe Borg’s emotion for McEnroe in this movie is fondness. Borg can’t seem to help but smile when he sees McEnroe, even when he’s yelling at the umpires. This is also true to life, as Borg has expressed that he liked McEnroe from their first meeting on the court. Within the context of the movie, this fondness appears to be largely rooted in Borg’s believed shortcomings and his frustration with a system that seems to have beaten the love of tennis out of him. It impresses Borg on some level that McEnroe can scream and curse at the officials and crowds and still play the game with laser focus. When Borg was a child, he was suspended from his tennis club for unsportsmanlike conduct not unlike the behavior McEnroe displays. We can see that Borg does have a temper akin to McEnroe’s, he just keeps it contained, and believes that if he lets it out, his game will collapse around him. As another player describes him in the film, he’s not an iceberg, he’s a volcano. Further, as mentioned, Borg appears exhausted with the tennis community throughout the film. While being suspended from the tennis club, the owner chastised him by telling him that tennis was a “gentleman’s sport.” With this in mind, Borg may have felt a certain level of satisfaction seeing McEnroe flaunt any “gentlemanly” decorum, telling the umpires and crowds alike to shove it.

These two giants circle each other throughout the film, and it is a testament to Pedersen’s direction that their relationship feels as absorbing as it does without either of them exchanging a word until well into the third act. Borg watches McEnroe throughout the film and sees him as both a great obstacle he must overcome to achieve his childhood dream and as a representation of his own simmering rage. McEnroe obsesses over Borg as someone he desperately wants to be. If McEnroe beats Borg, the crowds will stop booing, his father will give him the approval he craves, he will finally be the best. Borg is smothered by the weight of expectations and childhood hopes where McEnroe is driven largely by his insecurities. When the two men meet in the Wimbledon finals, only one will win, but both achieve a certain catharsis.

Borg and McEnroe walk into the finals match wanting to win but needing something different. Borg needs to find his passion for the game and his will to win again. Only by finding that can he achieve what he has wanted since childhood: to be a legend in tennis. McEnroe needs to prove that he is more than just a bad temper, but that he’s one of the greats. He needs to prove this to himself, to his father, and to the world. McEnroe believes he can only achieve this by beating the greatest in the game: Borg.

The reaction to both players as they enter the match says it all. The crowd boos McEnroe yet again, as he had previously lost his temper in his semi-finals match and had been acting up throughout the tournament. Borg gets a standing ovation. The irony here being that Borg clearly feels very little about a cheering crowd anymore, while McEnroe desperately wants this. Pedersen sets this up perfectly for both players to achieve their emotional payoff, even though only one can win the match.

Both Borg and McEnroe play brilliantly in this match, though Borg started out slow and McEnroe fizzled a bit mid-match. There comes a point where it looks like Borg is running away with a victory, but something changes. After a time-out, as the two players pass each other, Borg says to a clearly deflated McEnroe, “It’s alright. It’s a great match. Just play your tennis.” This is the first time either lead has spoken to the other in the film, it also came at a point in the match where McEnroe appeared close to losing his temper, and the announcers and crowd seemed to have the same expectation that he was going to go off any second. This moment between Borg and McEnroe appears to be inspired by a real interaction between the two players on a different occasion where McEnroe lost his temper and Borg told him “This is a game. Relax. Take it easy.” Which in turn calmed McEnroe down and inspired him to play better and be on his best behavior when playing Borg. That interaction, according to McEnroe, also made him feel that Borg had accepted him.

The impact is similar in the film. While McEnroe had not yet lost his temper in this match, Borg’s words, which McEnroe may have taken as approval or even praise, light a fire under him. Suddenly he’s playing much better, forcing the fourth set into the famous tiebreaker, which goes on for an impressive amount of time, with both men refusing to give in. We can see how, in the context of this film, approval from Borg lifted McEnroe up exorbitantly, especially in a stadium full of people who appeared to believe the worst of him. He had been booed throughout the film, his father looked disappointed in him every time he lost his temper, but here the greatest player in the world, the player he spent the entire film fixated on, tells him he’s doing a great job. While he had previously been able to play through disapproval from the crowds, against Borg, the finals match at Wimbledon may have been too overwhelming until Borg heaped quiet praise on him.

McEnroe finding his fight again turns out to be just what Borg needs as well, not to win the match, but to want this victory again. He was already on his way to winning Wimbledon and achieving his dream before he showed McEnroe kindness, but when McEnroe comes back, Borg must fight for it. He does not get a cakewalk to his fifth Wimbledon title. First, McEnroe hands him what Borg has described as the worst moment of his tennis career: when Borg loses the brutal tiebreaker in the fourth set. This loss is directed brilliantly, as the audience fully feels that if there were ever to be a moment in Borg’s career where he was going to break his racket, it would have been then. But as angry as he was, he still contains himself. More than that, he is able to get back up and continue to play like the champion he is. He lost seven match points in the fourth set, and most players could not come back from that kind of mental loss. Borg does, and Borg wins.

Borg overcoming McEnroe’s comeback may have made Borg’s victory that much greater for him, giving him a love of the game again, but of course it only made McEnroe’s loss even more devastating. His victory in the tiebreaker was astounding. So hard won that it would have been extremely difficult not to root for him after he won it. Imagine that. The Superbrat became the rootable underdog through great talent and sheer determination. It also helped that he never lost his temper once throughout the match, helping to get the crowd on his side for the very first time. As McEnroe played and played so well, the crowd cheered louder and louder for him. How could they not? McEnroe stated at the beginning of the film that he could make the boos stop by winning Wimbledon, by being the best. One can see that he still felt that way after his loss, as he hangs his head, near tears at a shattering defeat, and eyes his father in the crowd. But this is not so. When his name is called after Borg claims his trophy, the crowd stands and cheers for McEnroe. As the announcer put it, he was not the champion that day, but he won the people’s hearts.

It is in this way that Borg and McEnroe both gave each other what they needed. Borg gave it to McEnroe through a small moment of kindness, keeping him steady and motivating him to play harder. McEnroe gave it to Borg through his incredible resolve in their match. They both needed each other, and it very much feels like both could have only achieved this emotional release with the other. Only Borg could have provided McEnroe with that reassurance, and it was only McEnroe who Borg felt a connection with and who could have pushed him as hard as he did.

When Borg and McEnroe bump into each other at the airport in the film’s final scene, the audience really does feel a great sense of satisfaction. This is the first time they have an actual conversation, and it happens after hammering each other on a tennis court for hours. Despite this, there is only warmth between them. Borg had not been shown to have much of a relationship with other players, and McEnroe had done well to make enemies. But there is no distance or animosity here as McEnroe teasingly takes an awkward but willing Borg in his arms as they say goodbye. There is only affection. The two had experienced suffering at each other’s hands on the tennis court, and without realizing, both gave the other something he desperately needed. The film makes for a great discussion of the beautiful beginning to what would be a lifelong friendship.

It’s a tale as old as Survivor: Borneo.

The Fallen Angel. The Final Juror. The player who made it so close to Final Tribal Council only to fall short. Whether by the final vote or by fire making, this player does not see the end of the game, does not have the chance to plead their case to win a million dollars and the title of Sole Survivor in front of the jury. In many cases, the Fallen Angel was likely the winner, often considered the best player. But whether they would have won or not, the tale of the final juror is tragic to watch unfold. Every season.

How can we not love it?

I wanted to write this after watching Jesse fall short on the latest season, Survivor: 43. I suspected it was coming for a while. Jesse just felt like too much of a mastermind with a dominant edit to win in this era of Survivor, especially after his flashy move to vote Cody off. As I watched Gabler’s fire inch higher and higher as Jesse’s fire barely got started, I knew it was over. Jesse was this season’s Fallen Angel.

It was particularly tough to watch how emotional Jesse was. We saw throughout the season how much pressure he put on himself to win the money for his family. It was brutal to watch the tears stream down his face and his torch get snuffed out. But this is how the game goes. Jesse was an incredible strategic and social player, and everyone knew it. So of course, no one would want to take him to the end to lose against him. This is how Survivor has always worked. At the final four (or in the final three in the early seasons) the players target the biggest perceived threat to win the game.

The funny thing is, Survivor has been trying to combat the Fallen Angel since season 13, Survivor: Cook Islands when they changed the final 2 format to a final 3 because the favorite players or the most strategically savvy usually went out as the Last Juror in the final 3. But players caught on quickly and took out the bigger threats earlier. To combat this, producers took action again on season 35, Survivor: Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers and introduced the final 4 fire making challenge. Instead of voting, whoever won immunity would choose two players to make fire. Whoever won would advance to the final 3. The loser? The Final Juror. It was Devon, a Fallen Angel beloved by the fanbase, who was the first to fall in final 4 fire making against Ben, the alleged producer favorite.

All of this is to say that Fallen Angels are often beloved, by fans and producers (in the case of HvHvH Ben was a guaranteed Fallen Angel before the twist). I am of the opinion that even if a Fallen Angel wasn’t the strategic mastermind of the season or the biggest root-able underdog, and was a quieter player like Heather, Sundra, or Keith or a less-than-pleasant player like Rodney, it is always one of the most compelling arcs to watch over the course of the season. Who will come up just short? Being the Final Juror is such a devastating position, because of the feeling of being *so close.*

It’s a tragedy. I was starkly reminded of that as I watched Jesse overcome with emotion at his loss. Tragedy compels us, as hard as it is for the players to endure it. Of course, there was backlash to Jesse’s loss, backlash to the concept of final 4 fire making, backlash to the players who targeted him. But this is the game. Jesse is not the first beloved player to just miss out on pleading his case to the jury and he won’t be the last.

As mentioned, the Fallen Angel goes back to the very first season of Survivor. When Kelly won the final immunity challenge and voted out Rudy, the Navy veteran that everyone was rooting for, because she knew he would win in a landslide. Kelly would ultimately lose to Rich, the man who owned his villainy throughout the game, in the final 2. Rudy became the game’s first Fallen Angel, but who could hold the decision against Kelly? She did what she had to do to give herself the best chance to win, and that was not by going against Rudy. This is what the Survivor is. You build alliances and relationships, and you also must play to ensure that it will be you sitting at Final Tribal Council. Fallen Angels may be tragic to watch, but it should never be held against the players responsible for their ousting, as they are only playing the game for themselves. Relationships are tested this way, and that is part of what makes this show so great.

Watching the Fallen Angel get their torch snuffed and walk out of Tribal Council has always, in my opinion, made for some of the best reality television. While it is always tragic and compelling, the story is never the same. Lex in Survivor: Africa, the strategic mastermind, voted out by the mother figure of the season in a heart wrenching decision between him and Ethan. Kathy in Marquesas, who had an incredible arc of growth from the annoying mom of the tribe to the greatest threat to win, voted out after a brutal betrayal by Vecepia. Rob in Amazon, who in many ways invented modern Survivor with his new gameplay, voted out as Jenna finally got her revenge on him for his betrayals. Jonny Fairplay in Pearl Islands, the man who lied about his grandmother’s death to gain sympathy in the game, and was a real threat to win, finally gets his comeuppance for all of us to enjoy. Scout in Vanuatu, part of one of the most dominant women’s alliances in the show, taken out by the last man standing. Terry in Exile Island, the beloved underdog challenge beast, could not clinch the last immunity challenge, and so he goes. Yau Man on Fiji, an ultimate fan favorite and idol finder, going out in one of the show’s more controversial moments, but despite it all he did fight to the bitter end.

I can go on and on about every season, but since I’m approaching Cirie’s season I will discuss her more in depth. I’d consider Cirie this show’s ultimate Fallen Angel. She has played four times, played well each time, and somehow never won. Her vote-out in Micronesia is one for the ages. She, Parvati and Amanda believed it would be a final 3. It wasn’t. It was a final 2. Amanda won immunity and she got to choose. She voted out Cirie and was in tears as she did it. Seeing Cirie, a mom who famously “got off the couch” to play Survivor and was so good at the game and so personable and beloved by the fans, go out at the eleventh hour, losing a chance to plead her case, it is brutal.

And it never gets easier (though on occasion you may smile a bit at the Fallen Angel, I’m looking at you Rodney, it does not make for a less compelling tale). Matty in Gabon. Jerri on Heroes vs Villains (the once ultimate villainess became the biggest jury threat for being likable!). Ozzy’s absolutely devastating final challenge choke and boot at the final 4 in South Pacific. The beloved Malcolm in Philippines. Rodney in Worlds Apart, one of the loudest misogynists to ever play this game, losing fire making to Carolyn and becoming the final juror. Kelley Wentworth, who had one of the most impressive idol plays ever, going out at final 4. David’s underdog story coming to an end in Millennials vs Gen X. Heather on 41 who was done so dirty in her edit but watching her come so close to winning in fire and then losing, it was devastating.

Maybe I’m just recapping the entire show now, and there are many Fallen Angels who I did not mention because of course there are 43 seasons and I’m not looking to write a book. But every Fallen Angel is different and that is what we can love about Survivor. We see a new story unfold every season, a new tragedy as someone comes up just short. Will they be a great underdog? The strategic mastermind? A quiet player but a great social one? A villain who goes down in flames? Or just the nicest player of the season? I don’t know, but I enjoy all of their stories. I look forward to seeing the next player who misses out on Final Tribal Council.

But one thing is true of all of them. From Rudy to Jesse. They gave it all they got.

Everyone knows Elvis. Most of us don’t recall learning his name because we cannot remember not knowing who he was. Whether through Lilo and Stitch, an impersonator in a white jumpsuit, or a performer saying “Thank you. Thank you very much” we all know Elvis to the point that he almost feels ingrained in our DNA. With that celebrity status comes the stories of his life in the limelight, some almost mythical. Perhaps the most prominent of those anecdotes are the recollections of the behavior of his female fans.

Women, I have always known, screamed and swooned at the sight of Elvis, especially when he danced while performing. His hip thrusting was a sight to behold for young women in the 1950s. The decade is considered by historians to be one of the most conservative in American history due to the efforts after the Second World War to send women back into the homes after a brief stint of economic freedom during the war while their husbands were away. Young women from their sheltered, state endorsed upbringing were suddenly, to public horror, throwing their panties at Elvis Presley as he gyrated on stage.

This unbridled reaction from women made Elvis both beloved and infamous. The FBI named him a “danger to the security of the United States” and specifically cited the carnal reaction to him from youth as the reason. Today, this can be difficult to imagine: the FBI naming someone a public enemy for their hip thrusting and screaming fans. In Baz Luhrmann’s new movie, Elvis, he goes above and beyond to capture not only why women reacted to Elvis the way they did, but how the reaction from women had the police state and White America shaking at the knees. It can be easy to chuckle about the women’s reaction to the rock singer from our current standpoint, but Luhrmann’s film aims to show us that it was no laughing matter at the time. It was rebellion.

When Austin Butler’s Elvis first busts a move in the opening performance of the movie at the Louisiana Hayride, I was suddenly overcome with understanding of why those girls in the 1950s screamed at the sight of Elvis. This is of course a testament to both Butler’s performance and Luhrmann’s direction. Butler goes no holds barred in his performance, and his commitment is admirable. Costume designer Catherine Martin dressed him to the nines and cinematographer Mandy Walker framed these concert scenes with a woman’s perspective. It’s easy to imagine yourself, while watching, as one of those girls in the audience. Elvis’s musical talent is always prevalent, but the shots of Butler’s swinging hips make clear what those girls were screaming for. When the first girl shrieks at the concert, all I could think was “Same, girl.”

As the girls flood the front of the theater to get closer to Elvis, we are reminded through the voiceover of Tom Hanks’s Colonel Tom Parker just how wild this kind of reaction was. Parker seems beguiled by all these screaming women, and he notices one in particular who looks scandalized by Elvis’s performance, restraining herself before finally giving in and screaming along with the rest of the crowd. This girl, Parker could see, was “having feelings she wasn’t sure she should have.” Of course this girl wasn’t sure she should have a reaction to a man on stage swinging his hips in a suggestive manner. It’s moments like that in movies when I recall my own mom telling me stories about how her mother told her she’d go to hell if a man ever touched her. It’s this, the shame women have for their sexual desire, that Luhrmann captures in this moment, and perfectly defines Elvis as, what Parker calls, “forbidden fruit.”

With Elvis’s performance style and the reaction from audiences, his star rapidly rises. But after performing on the Ed Sullivan Show for the whole country to see, he is met with backlash. Senator James Eastland, a staunch Mississippian segregationist, connects his performance style with that of Black artists at the time, Black artists who Elvis infamously took from, to strike fear in White America. Their precious white daughters could not be subjected to this kind of behavior. The backlash rolls on, much of it true to life. He was banned in cities like Boston, ordered by judges to stay still on stage, and much to his chagrin, nicknamed “Elvis the Pelvis.” His dance moves, the press and state pushed, were a threat to American civility, igniting lascivious urges in the hearts of youth.

While Elvis is generally regarded as a resolutely heterosexual figure, especially given the stories of women’s reactions to him, Luhrmann contends in his movie that this sexual awakening was far from a Straights-Only Revolution. In Elvis’s first performance, he is wearing a pink suit, lace top, and as Parker describes, “girly makeup.” One of the men in the audience jeers at Elvis, calling him a “fairy” before Elvis proceeds to make his girlfriend swoon over his dance moves. Here we see something not often discussed regarding Elvis, his early challenging of gender norms, something social media heaps praise on male celebrities for doing today.

Luhrmann goes further, as in every concert scene packed with swooning women, one can also spot a few men staring at Elvis slack jawed. As Senator Eastman’s family watches Elvis on Ed Sullivan, a young man in the room watches Elvis with barely concealed lust on his face. Luhrmann also seemed to imply that a fellow performer on Elvis’s first tour Jimmie Rodgers Snow had a crush on him, staring at Elvis as he danced and saying, “I don’t know what I’m thinking.” The 1950s were particularly unfriendly decade for LGBT+ people, with the American Psychiatric Association listing homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1952 and President Eisenhower banning people guilty of “sexual perversion” from federal jobs the following year. It would be in the 1960s when the gay rights movement would make significant gains. With the shots of men experiencing their own sexual awakening while watching Elvis, Luhrmann makes clear that the state’s fear of Elvis extended beyond the reaction to him from women.

With the backlash against Elvis reaching a fever pitch, Parker determines that his client needs a new image. He repackages Elvis in a suit with a tail and sends him on the Steve Allen Show as “the new Elvis” to sing Hound Dog to a basset hound in a top hat. This is as ridiculous as it sounds. You can practically hear Luhrmann off camera telling us “They seriously did this because they were so afraid of his performance style.” Elvis does not take this embarrassing television appearance well, knowing that he was pleasing no one. People who hated him were not going to get on board and people who loved him would only be disappointed. He was also naïve enough to believe that there was a chance he would get arrested for performing his way, though that fear likely stemmed from his father’s own stint in prison. This is what the press, the state, and even his management ordered, so what was he to do?

Elvis has something of a character arc in each decade presented in the movie. His arc in the 1950s is largely about understanding his own power, and it’s after the Steve Allen show that he does. After a conversation with B.B. King in which King tells Elvis simply that too many people are making money off him for him to face any real consequences, Elvis seems renewed as he heads to his next concert. His police escort makes clear to him that he is to stay still for the duration of the concert. Elvis, we can already see, has no intention of listening. When he goes on stage, he tells the audience that he wouldn’t be listening to the people trying to change him and declares, “I’m gonna show you what the real Elvis is like tonight!” Before performing Trouble, a song that seems designed to whip an audience into a frenzy. Elvis throws his hips forward, falling to his knees, inviting anyone who can reach to touch him. There is a line of National Guardsmen attempting to block his fans from the stage, and the fans continuously push against them. Elvis at one point makes his way into the crowd, letting his fans tear into him. The crowd grows riotous, and Parker orders the concert over and Elvis off the stage. The security drags him away, fans chasing after him as he’s thrown into a police car and shepherded off.

Riots at Elvis concerts were commonplace at this stage of his career. It was largely the fear of riots that prompted judges and police officials to order Elvis to stay still on stage. Despite the seriousness of riots, there certainly is an edge of humor to riots breaking out because young women were so frenzied over the swinging of this man’s hips. Luhrmann presents some of the humor in the lustful reaction to Elvis. It’s hard not to chuckle at the screams of these young women, though Luhrmann is always careful to present the humor of it without laughing at the women. Lesser directors making movies today often make a joke out of sex and desire, which is just a sneakier form of sex negativity. But in Elvis, it is always clear that the women’s reaction, funny as it may be, is the result of a cultural clampdown on their sexuality, and that is anything but funny.

Elvis’s rejection of the police state’s orders is presented as a vociferous rejection of 1950s conservativism. Whether this was actually Elvis’s intention, as it is true he often ignored these commands at his concerts, of course we cannot know. But Luhrmann uses Elvis a vehicle to present his own rejection of the politics of that era, which unfortunately follow us to today with the recent overturning of Roe v Wade and fresh attacks on LGBT+ rights. Luhrmann gives the finger to a state that seeks to control, suppress, and divide, all tools of fascism, in this scene. He takes our modern humorous way of looking at this scenario, the cops told Elvis to stop his wiggling haha, and reminds us that this was not something taken lightly, and that kind of policing of an artist is something to be feared and rebel against. Elvis was radical, Luhrmann says, not because of the mythical hip swinging, but for doing what he wanted with his own career despite what the dominant class told him.

While watching Butler’s Elvis perform Trouble at that concert, I was struck by how much I wanted to be there, screaming along with the rest of his fans. Luhrmann does not present this concert as the horror show that the state believed it to be, or the goofy recollection from present day, but he presents it in the way the audience felt at the time: like freedom. Women and men free to scream their heads off, push past National Guardsmen, and grab at the man of their desires as he enters the audience. Of course, the danger of this is recognized, but the elation is treated with reverence, not contempt. It feels less and less common in recent movies for the passions of people, particularly women, to be depicted in this way. Not as something to be afraid of, or to laugh at, but something to admire, strive for, and find freedom in. Basking in our own joy and desire, Luhrmann shows us, is a radical act.

Like most Star Wars fans, when Lucasfilm announced an Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ featuring the return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, I was thrilled. I grew up watching the Star Wars prequels and have appreciated them even more as an adult. But since Disney acquired Lucasfilm, it has been apparent that they don’t hold the prequels in high esteem. They were sparsely referenced in the sequel trilogy, and the director of two of the sequels, J.J. Abrams, is outspoken about his dislike for them. The Obi-Wan series was the opportunity for the prequels to finally get their due, with two of the faces of the prequels returning. Now, finally, Ewan has returned to the role, with Hayden in tow. It felt like a long time coming.

Before the Obi-Wan series was released, we were promised a Logan-esque character driven series. That was exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted the series to look at Anakin’s fall to the dark side and Obi-Wan’s failings as his master. I should say now, because I know Star Wars fans are sensitive about this, that of course Anakin is responsible for his own actions. Obi-Wan did not force Anakin to turn to the dark side and commit atrocities. But I also believe that the Star Wars fandom often neglects to acknowledge Obi-Wan’s shortcomings, and how his behavior and actions drove Anakin closer to the dark side. The show, I hoped, would explore this idea. I wanted to see Obi-Wan grapple with Anakin’s fall, and his role in causing it. What he could have done better as a master to prevent it. Unfortunately, now that the Obi-Wan finale has aired, I can say that the show did not do this, and only covered Obi-Wan’s failure in a superficial way. I was disappointed, disappointed enough that I wanted to write about how this show came up short and really dropped the ball on what could have been an excellent character study.

The prequels showed Obi-Wan and Anakin’s master and apprentice relationship to be a rocky one. Obi-Wan was wary of Anakin when he first met him as a child, and he only agreed to train him when his own master, Qui-Gon Jinn, made him promise to do so before dying in Obi-Wan’s arms. In Attack of the Clones, while we can see the comradery between Obi-Wan and Anakin, there is tension as well. Anakin is outspoken and struggles with being under Obi-Wan’s thumb. When Obi-Wan isn’t around, Anakin often brings him up, usually to mention how Obi-Wan wouldn’t approve of something he’s doing. “He’s overly critical, he never listens, he doesn’t understand.” He tells Padmé. Despite these frustrations, Anakin still refers to Obi-Wan as being like his father, and we can see his emotional attachment to him. He still listens to Obi-Wan and seems desperate for his approval.

Obi-Wan, for his part, does not express his approval of Anakin very often. He believes Anakin to be skilled but arrogant. In some soft moments, due to Ewan’s great performance, we can see Obi-Wan’s care for Anakin, the love in his eyes when he looks at his apprentice. But more often than not, Obi-Wan expresses exasperation with Anakin. This exasperation is often warranted, as Anakin is clearly a handful, but it is apparent that Anakin is looking for something that Obi-Wan either cannot see that Anakin needs or is unable to give him.

Perhaps Obi-Wan’s greatest failing is his disregard for Anakin’s concern about his mother. Anakin dreams that his mother is in danger. His master brushes it off. “Dreams pass in time.” These dreams did not pass. When Anakin goes to his home planet to find his mother (without Obi-Wan’s permission) he finds that she has been kidnapped. He goes to rescue her, and she dies in his arms. This would prove a pivotal moment in Anakin’s path to the dark side and unsurprisingly, he puts a lot of the blame on Obi-Wan, saying that it was his fault and that he was holding him back out of jealousy. Obi-Wan’s dismissal of Anakin’s feelings and fears drove a wedge between them, and pushed Anakin closer to Chancellor Palpatine, someone who was able to fill the void as a compassionate father figure that Obi-Wan was unable to fill.

By Revenge of the Sith, a few years have passed. Obi-Wan and Anakin seem more in tune with each other this time around, at least on the battlefield. They fight like one, and Anakin refuses to leave Obi-Wan behind when Palpatine tells him to do so on a rescue mission. Anakin’s devotion to Obi-Wan is still strong, but the emotional distance remains. Importantly, Anakin and Padmé are married at this point. Crucially, Obi-Wan knows this. That is canon in the novels as well as the Clone Wars series, but even in these two movies in the trilogy, his suspicions are apparent. Anakin went against the Jedi Code and married Padmé. Obi-Wan does not confront him about this or tell the Jedi Council. He allows it to go on. We are not given an explanation as to why. Perhaps he feared losing Anakin if the Jedi found out, which would reveal his own attachment to Anakin, something he supposedly opposes. Perhaps he wanted Anakin to tell him himself, something Anakin would never do, and that on its own is telling.

Soon, Anakin has dreams of Padmé’s death in childbirth, as he had dreams of his mother. He is of course unnerved by these dreams, as they proved true in his mother’s case. But this time, he does not go to Obi-Wan about them. Why would he? Obi-Wan proved unwilling to listen before and to tell him would be to expose his marriage to Padmé. Anakin’s mistrust in Obi-Wan is evident, and it is hard to argue that it’s not justified given what happened to Anakin’s mother. Anakin’s dreams about Padmé’s death would prove to be the final straw in Anakin’s turn to the dark side, as Palpatine is able to use this fear to convince Anakin to join him. Had Obi-Wan shown more compassion to Anakin about his dreams of his mother, or alternatively, had Obi-Wan told Anakin he knew of his marriage to Padmé, and promised that he would not tell the council, perhaps things would have been different.

Anakin’s perception that he was disappointing Obi-Wan continues in Revenge of the Sith. When Anakin loses his temper in front of the council, he and Obi-Wan exchange looks, and Obi-Wan’s expression is one of frustration, maybe even embarrassment. Finally, Anakin expresses this to Obi-Wan, that he believes he’s disappointed him and apologizes. Obi Wan, for the first time, tells him that he is proud of him and heaps approval on him, something Anakin has so desperately needed. Unfortunately, this would prove too little, too late. Palpatine already had his hooks into Anakin, and Anakin was too far gone in his fear over Padmé, two things that Obi-Wan could have helped prevent. The next time they would see each other, it would be as enemies.

While Anakin made his own choices, it would only be natural for Obi-Wan to contemplate what he could have done differently as his master to help prevent Anakin’s fall in the following years. After all, in their duel at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan says to Anakin “I have failed you.” This seems to be an acknowledgement of his shortcomings as Anakin’s master. Obi-Wan himself knew he had done wrong. He also tells Anakin “You were my brother. I loved you.” He never told Anakin he loved him before this moment, and it was something Anakin probably needed to hear. George Lucas seemed aware of how Obi-Wan had come up short as a master, and I hoped to see this further explored in the Obi-Wan series. Did his devotion to the Jedi prevent him from showing Anakin the love he felt for him? And did that love and attachment mean he was a hypocrite of a Jedi? These were interesting questions they could have explored.

The first episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi finds Obi-Wan ten years after the events of Revenge of the Sith living his life on Tatooine. Working a regular job, living in a cave, watching over Luke, and keeping a low profile. It is clear from these scenes that Obi-Wan has been brought low. He has little interaction with anyone and is only focused on getting through each day. He has also cut himself off from the Force and is unable to commune with his former master. At night, he is haunted by his past, remembering the good times with Anakin, the fall of the Republic, Padmé’s death, and what he believed to be Anakin’s death as well. Obi-Wan is under the impression that Anakin died when he burned alive in front of him. He has spent the last decade believing he killed his apprentice and is still traumatized from the experience.

The first episode alludes to Obi-Wan’s guilt over what happened with Anakin. He certainly seems to feel guilty about killing him and the adoptive fathers of the twins, Owen and Bail, also bring up his mistakes. When Obi-Wan says to Owen that Luke will need to be trained as a Jedi, Owen asks him “Like you trained his father?” with no shortage of contempt, as he believes his stepbrother died on Obi-Wan’s watch. Obi-Wan is unable to reply. This moment certainly indicates that Obi-Wan had failed as a master. Later in the episode, Bail arrives on Tatooine to convince Obi-Wan to rescue his daughter. Bail tells him “You’ve made mistakes. We all did.” We get no specificity from either of these scenes about what specific mistakes Obi-Wan had made, but I didn’t expect that from episode one. I thought things were perfectly set up for the show to explore Obi-Wan’s mistakes more in depth.

This would not be the case. The show continues to allude to the mistakes Obi-Wan has made, as he has this exchange with Tala in episode 3:

“I made some mistakes.”

“We all did.”

“I can’t imagine Obi-Wan Kenobi doing anything wrong.”

I kept waiting for them to go further than that. Yes, he made some mistakes, but what were they? Does he know how he failed as a master? How has he changed? In episode 3 Obi-Wan is confronted with his failure in a brutal way when he is found by Darth Vader. Vader, who is obsessed with finding him and exacting revenge. Obi-Wan is no match for him, and Vader smothers him in a field of fire, mirroring his own fate at the end of Revenge of the Sith. It was at this point that I thought the show was getting somewhere regarding Obi-Wan dealing with the consequences of his actions. Obi-Wan had just been made to suffer the excruciating fate he left Anakin to experience. That must have an impact on him, right? Surely, we will see a major moment of his dealing with Anakin’s suffering and how he had put him through a lot of it. I found myself disappointed in episode 4 when the plot kept rushing forward and there seemed to be no time to dwell on how Obi-Wan felt about what just happened to him. He had a brief exchange with Tala about forgetting the past, but it ended there. It seemed like a missed opportunity, to not have Obi-Wan further consider the pain Anakin lives with every day because of their duel.

This show had a way of getting my hopes up at the beginning of the episode and letting me down by the end. As was the case in episode 5. We are treated to flashbacks to Obi-Wan and Anakin training together prior to Attack of the Clones. It was a delight to see Hayden in his padawan garb again. He and Ewan played off each other so well. Though I realized quickly that their flashback sparring match was meant to parallel Vader’s present-day hunt for Obi-Wan. Anakin gets overeager, seems like he’s winning, Obi-Wan outsmarts him and wins. We’re told that Anakin’s desire to prove himself is his undoing, as Obi-Wan escapes him yet again in present day. There is something to that, an indication that perhaps even as Vader, he still desperately wants to prove himself to Obi-Wan. He still wants his approval. Though I still found myself let down by this flashback. It felt like they didn’t even crack the surface of their relationship. There is no hint of the mistakes Obi-Wan made as Anakin’s master in those flashbacks, only that Anakin’s desire to prove himself is a serious flaw. We’ve been told that Obi-Wan had made mistakes, but still we’re never told or shown what they were, and in a flashback, we’re shown how Anakin was flawed, not Obi-Wan.

Finally, we come to what we’ve all been waiting for: Obi-Wan and Vader’s final confrontation (until A New Hope anyway). Admittedly by episode 6, I wasn’t exactly on board with the show anymore, but I was still hoping to enjoy the finale. Obi-Wan and Vader confront each other again, only this time Obi-Wan is far more capable of holding his own. The fight comes to an end when Obi-Wan overpowers Vader, hurling rocks at him with the Force, damaging his suit, and slicing his mask so we can see Anakin’s burnt face under the helmet. It is at this point that Obi-Wan stops his attack, seemingly unable to go on, and says Anakin’s name. Then they have this exchange:

“Anakin is gone. I am what remains.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Anakin. For all of it.”

“I am not your failure, Obi Wan. You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did.”

On its own, I loved this line from Vader. To me, refusing to view himself as Obi-Wan’s failure was Anakin’s way of seizing agency for himself, as well as a reference to his perception that Obi-Wan was constantly disappointed in him throughout the prequels. He was no longer Obi-Wan’s to be disappointed in. He is Obi-Wan’s nothing. I wasn’t surprised to see that most Star Wars fans seemed to take this line (particularly the “failure” line) differently than I did. The common interpretation seemed to be that the line was Anakin momentarily breaking through Vader to tell Obi-Wan that he did not blame him for his fate and absolving him of any responsibility Obi-Wan may have felt. Hayden Christensen has apparently agreed to that interpretation at a screening of the finale.

If you’ve made it this far into my article, you won’t be surprised to hear that I am not a fan of that interpretation. In part because I do not actually believe that Anakin, as much as he loved Obi-Wan, would have absolved him of his failures. It is also odd to think that Anakin would break through momentarily, only for Obi-Wan to then say, “Then my friend is truly dead.” How can that be if Anakin shone through in that exchange? And of course, I vehemently dislike the idea that Obi-Wan would simply be absolved for his failures as a master and their horrific consequences. I do not care for the message it sends, that Anakin fell because of the evil inside him, not because of anything Obi-Wan or the Jedi more broadly did. In putting the blame squarely on Anakin, the show also absolved the Jedi Order for its arrogance and ignorance that allowed one of their most powerful Jedi to fall right in front of them. Obi-Wan could not save Anakin. Anakin could only save himself. We cannot save others if they have evil inside them. Passing the blame onto Anakin so easily, despite having a whole trilogy where we can see what Obi-Wan did to push Anakin away from him and towards the dark side, was a baffling choice.

Truly, I’m not exactly sure what Obi-Wan was apologizing for, because the show never went beyond telling us that Obi-Wan “made mistakes.” Based on what we saw in the show, I wonder if the mistake was letting Anakin suffer while being burned alive instead of just killing him. The cruelty of the decision to leave Anakin to die is loosely addressed. But his failings as a master? This show addressed none of that. I do not know if Obi-Wan was apologizing for not being the father Anakin needed, not telling him he knew about him and Padmé, his constant disapproval, or leaving him to burn alive. “For all of it” is a broad statement that the show chose not to delve into, and once Vader tells Obi-Wan that he did not kill Anakin, but Vader did, Obi-Wan bids him goodbye, leaving him barely breathing as Vader shouts his name after him. I found that to be fairly cruel, leaving him to suffer and perhaps die for the second time. Especially knowing that years later he would insist that Luke had to kill Vader to save the galaxy. In episode 1 of this series, Obi-Wan seemed traumatized by the last time he fought Vader, and left him to die. By episode 6, he fights him again and leaves him behind again, and is in high spirits afterwards. The difference seems to be that the second time, he believed he had not done anything wrong.

As mentioned, for the rest of the episode, Obi-Wan is in a good mood. He helps Reva find a new path for herself, he says his goodbyes to Leia, he meets Luke, and he reunites with Qui-Gon. It seems he has found his old self again and found hope. It also read to me that he let go of Anakin and what happened between them. Unfortunately, I feel he got to this place without ever once grappling with his role in the fall of the Republic and Anakin’s fall. He was his old self again, but is that a good thing?

While I would have preferred to see Obi-Wan grapple with guilt over his actions in the prequels, I could also make the argument that he shouldn’t have believed he did anything to cause Anakin’s fall. The Obi-Wan we meet in the original trilogy is a proud man, still loyal to the Jedi Code, and he seems to have distanced himself from his former feelings for Vader. I do not get the sense from any of his scenes that he felt responsibility for what Anakin had become. So, in that vein, what could have been a very interesting approach to this series would have been to show us Obi-Wan’s failings, in flashbacks, visions, or other means to remind us. There also could have been dialogue between him and Vader where we get a sense from Vader why he was so angry with Obi-Wan, beyond the fact that he left him to die. Perhaps the writers could have shown us all of this, but Obi-Wan would still be unable to see that he failed, that he could have done more to help Anakin. His belief in the Jedi Order could blind him to anything he did wrong, and he could have walked away from Vader still believing he had done right, and Anakin’s fall was on him and him alone, while we the audience know better. This would have been a fascinating approach, but it would have involved taking a very negative view of one of the heroes of Star Wars, something Disney was probably unwilling to do. It is a shame, as I think this would have been incredibly interesting, and an indictment on the Jedi Order.

Ultimately, they chose something of a middle ground when approaching this show. They were willing to acknowledge Obi-Wan’s “mistakes” without actually naming them. Obi-Wan apologized without us really knowing what he’s apologizing for. Obi-Wan had to suffer a similar experience as Anakin when he was burnt alive without ever addressing how Obi-Wan felt about that. The show wanted us to know that Obi-Wan was flawed, that he “made mistakes” without Obi-Wan owning up to those flaws, learning, and growing. The show was more about Obi-Wan finding hope again and getting back to his old self than going through any evolution as a character. It was much easier for Obi-Wan to know he maybe messed up and apologize for unclear reasons, and then for Anakin to take the blame on himself. Anakin, Obi-Wan can finally see, could not be saved, and so he can move on with his life, knowing that he really was the good guy all along. I wish things were so simple, that we can brush off the impact we have on other people, knowing that they’re doomed anyway.

When Rachel Zegler’s Maria began to dance around Tony in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, it was immediately apparent that Spielberg had upped the angelic imagery of Maria beyond what we’ve seen on screen before. The dreamlike lighting, Maria’s flowing white dress, Tony’s stoic nature receding as he begins to dance with her, Maria is ethereal in this scene. She is practically floating around Tony, just out of reach until he takes her hand and pulls her to him. It is difficult to mistake the meaning of the scene, conveyed through the choreography. Maria is the good and the pure and Tony is the boy with the troubled past who had been told to look for something better. Maria is that something better.

None of this is new to West Side Story. This is the core of the story, originally conceived by Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein in the original musical. We have seen this story on stage and in the much-lauded 1961 movie directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. Spielberg never strays too far from what is familiar in his depiction of the two leads. Wood’s Maria was also kind and good natured, though noticeably older than Zegler’s Maria, as Wood was in her early 20s when she shot the movie, in contrast with Zegler who was only eighteen. Zegler’s Maria comes across younger, and perhaps a bit more cynical, as she spars with Tony about how Puerto Ricans are treated in New York. We are also treated to a scene of Maria standing up to her older brother Bernardo, which we never saw in the 1961 version. Maria is more of a spitfire in Spielberg’s version than we have seen before. Despite their differences, both versions of Maria fit nicely into The Ingenue archetype, a young virginal woman whose purity inspires the characters around her to feel they must protect her.

Where Maria has a few changes to her personality in Spielberg’s movie, Tony has perhaps the most dramatic change compared to the 1961 version. Beymer was an unabashed delight as Tony, with a smile that could make anyone’s heart melt. His Tony was a reformed gang member, true to the original story, and gets pulled back in by his best friend Riff. All of this is the same in Spielberg’s movie, but they go to greater lengths to show us that Tony was, and probably still is, dangerous. Rather than quitting the Jets because he was ready to move on, Tony was sent to prison for almost beating a man to death. It was in prison where he looked inward and chose to change for the better. While there is always a sense that Beymer’s Tony was willing to throw a punch, Spielberg’s Tony is often on the verge of losing control. Overall, this change worked for me. While I love Beymer’s Tony, I didn’t always buy him as a former gang member. With Spielberg’s Tony and this new backstory, I did.

This change in Tony’s character made the “good girl bad boy” trope a lot more prominent in Spielberg’s version. Beymer’s Tony, as mentioned, came across as a reformed bad boy and a sweetheart. Spielberg’s Tony is far from reformed. He still seems to be working on himself. Enter: Zegler’s Maria, a little more cynical perhaps, and forward in her intentions (she practically jumps on him in their first kiss) but still the kindhearted and innocent young woman we know. Couple that with the fact that Tony is obviously more experienced with women, compared to Maria’s minimal experience with men, and we have a straightforward good girl with the bad boy scenario.

This is Romeo and Juliet. Tony and Maria’s attachment is due in large part to the fact that they are soulmates. The world disappears when they look at each other. When Maria sees Tony, that is it, and vice versa. But in West Side Story, Tony’s attachment to Maria goes beyond that, and Spielberg’s movie explains it more than once. Once by Tony and once by Bernardo. Tony tells Maria about how he almost beat a man to death, and how since then he always felt like he was “about to fall off a building” but that feeling went away when he saw her. Maria, we see, makes him feel safe, like he won’t hurt anyone ever again. In other words, she makes him better. We don’t ever hear about Maria’s feelings when she looks at Tony. Her attachment is simply their soulmate connection, and a more cynical perspective would suggest that Tony is the bad boy that her brother told her to stay away from, so of course she wants him more than anyone else. But what is important here is Tony’s desire for Maria is always more thought out by the screenwriters, for both movies, than Maria’s desire for Tony. This is likely because Maria’s attachment to a gang member is harder to explain than Tony’s attachment to a kind young woman who is obviously good for him. But is Tony good for Maria? “I can fix him” is a funny trope on social media, but a bit harder for screenwriters to capture in a romantic way. In West Side Story, they don’t try it.

West Side Story has always faced criticism for the actions the two leads take at the climax of the movie not being believable. For Tony, when he kills Bernardo. For Maria, when she forgives Tony for killing her brother within an hour of it happening, has sex with him, and resolves to run away with him. As this is a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and as Bernardo is the Tybalt of this story, these actions were necessary to stay in line with the original story, but does the narrative support these decisions? In Tony’s case, I would argue yes. I have always found it believable that in a moment of rage after seeing his best friend die in front of him, he would kill Bernardo. Tony is, after all, a former gang member and no stranger to violence. With Spielberg’s Tony, it is even more believable as he had almost killed someone before. The far more controversial choice made in this story is Maria’s.

Critics of West Side Story have never been able to get past the idea that Maria would forgive Tony so quickly, let alone have sex with him, right after he killed her brother. This I understand. I think it is perhaps one of the craziest decisions I’ve ever seen a character make. Though I’m willing to suspend my disbelief when I remember the “soulmate” fact of their relationship, the fact that Maria (and Tony as well) was undoubtedly in an extremely vulnerable state after the death of her brother, the fact that they were both teenagers, and in Spielberg’s version, without her parents around, she may have felt an even stronger attachment to Tony. This narrative choice has been criticized because it seems in contrast to who Maria is: a good person. The story spends so much time showing her to be this pure soul, and she does something so in contrast to that. But Maria’s decision itself is, in my opinion, not the problem here. It is how that decision is handled by the narrative.

While Maria is not an evil person for the decision she makes, it is still a decision that would have devastated her brother and did devastate Anita, the woman that was as close to her as a sister. Anita is allowed some outrage for Maria’s choice. In Spielberg’s version, she slaps her in the face. A Boy Like That is a song that exists for Anita’s rage towards Maria, but it does not last. Soon, Maria flips the script on Anita, questioning whether Anita truly loved her brother, because Maria thinks if she had, then she would understand Maria’s forgiveness of Tony. Anita listens and soon, they’re singing together about both of their loves, culminating in the lyrics:

When love comes so strong,

There is no right or wrong,

Your love is your life.

And just like that, Maria is forgiven. Anita does not directly state that she forgives Maria, telling her she loves her when Maria asks for her forgiveness, but we as the audience are certainly asked to forgive Maria. As the song stated, there is no right or wrong in love, so how can we judge Maria for her decision? This is, I believe, where West Side Story runs into its greatest problem. Maria is not allowed to be more than the angelic girl Tony met at the dance. “There is no right or wrong” in her decision. Tony’s actions were wrong, but not Maria’s. The concern is likely that if we acknowledge that what Maria did was wrong, then perhaps we can’t forgive Tony. A shame that the story is so averse to letting the audience see and feel empathy for flawed characters. So, Maria is forgiven, and in fact, she did nothing wrong. But why? Why is Maria not allowed to make a horrendous decision and have it acknowledged as such? Unfortunately, what we’re left with is Maria being used as a vehicle to redeem Tony.

To the end, Maria remains pure and good, even after her decision. When Tony is killed in front of her, she finally feels hatred and that “perfect” façade drops. The tragedy is that Maria’s purity is gone, but not because of any action of her own. She points the gun at Chino and the Sharks and the Jets and even threatens to kill herself. But Maria does not feel rage because she is flawed, but because the world is flawed. As she says in the 1961 version about the cause of their woes, “It’s not us. It’s everything around us.” A remarkable departure from reality, as if Tony and Maria were inactive bystanders to everything that happened. That feeling rings true in Spielberg’s movie, though much stronger for Maria rather than Tony. It’s not her. It’s everything around her.

It is not particularly surprising that a story originally written by four men strips the female lead of her agency in this way. Maria’s flaws are passed over by the narrative in favor of her tragic loss of innocence in a cruel world. While I love the new West Side Story movie, these problems remain in the new version, possibly even stronger than before. Making Tony worse but keeping Maria relatively the same further illuminated this problem for me. I’d love to see a story of West Side Story where Maria is allowed to be flawed, and the narrative acknowledges her as such. Perhaps in another sixty years.

Trigger warnings for discussions of sexual assault and abuse.

Stabbed in the mouth or shot in the back, Adam Driver’s characters did not make it out of either of Ridley Scott’s movies this year alive. Both characters were based on real men, and the movies, The Last Duel and House of Gucci, based on true stories. Jacques Le Gris died in the last legally sanctioned duel in France, killed by his former friend Jean de Carrouges. Maurizio Gucci was gunned down by a hired hitman on his office steps in Italy. While one man lived in medieval France and the other only a few decades ago in Italy, both men died in large part because of their actions towards women.

I do not know if Ridley Scott intended for The Last Duel and House of Gucci to be in conversation with each other, but they are two female led movies directed by him that came out in the same year that include heavy themes of patriarchal societies. The fact that Adam Driver dies in both movies is almost humorous in its consistency. With all of this, it is difficult not to compare them. The female leads are entirely different, Adam Driver’s characters are not alike, but I believe there is a lot to be said about how both Jacques and Maurizio meet their ends, and the women who they wronged to get there.

Jodie Comer’s Marguerite de Carrouges enters The Last Duel walking submissively behind her father while Matt Damon’s Jean eyes her with interest. Lady Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani struts onto the screen in House of Gucci basking in the catcalls of all the men working at her father’s trucking company. The contrast between the two women is immediately plain to see, and what you would expect considering the two lived six hundred years apart. Patrizia has a job and independence. She is comfortable in her sexuality. Marguerite is the property of her father, and then her husband. Patrizia pursues Maurizio with vigor and relishes the sex she has with him. Marguerite is given to Jean by her father and never finds an ounce of enjoyment in sex with her husband. Both women will find themselves struggling with the men in their lives; the struggle to be seen and heard.

Adam Driver’s characters Jacques Le Gris and Maurizio Gucci are perhaps even more different from each other than Marguerite and Patrizia. Jacques basks in his place as a count’s favorite. He is an ambitious social climber and has all the confidence in the world, particularly when it comes to women. Maurizio lacks all ambition. He does not seem comfortable with his place in the Gucci family and attempts to separate himself from the name. Jacques is a lion, with the long flowing hair to match. Maurizio seems like a lamb.

What can two entirely different men do to women that leads both to an early demise? With Jacques, the answer is more straight forward. Jacques rapes Marguerite and dies in a duel that was meant to decide who was telling the truth. Whoever won had God on his side. Jacques lost; therefore, he was a rapist. While Jacques may not have seen what he did to Marguerite as rape, and he denies the crime to the very end, her perspective shows the audience just how horrifying the experience was for her. Marguerite wants justice for what was done to her, but she does not want a duel. She does not want Jacques to die, but rather answer for his crime in the courts. It is Jean who demands a duel, at the risk of his wife’s own life (she’ll be burned at the stake if he loses) because he had many scores to settle with Jacques long before he assaulted his wife. Marguerite’s pursuit of justice inadvertently causes Jacques’s death.

While Patrizia does not pull the trigger on Maurizio, she directly causes her husband’s death by hiring the hitman. Unlike Marguerite, she wanted him dead. Maurizio’s actions against Patrizia were not nearly as gruesome as what Jacques did to Marguerite. In fact, in the movie’s first act, Maurizio is an easy character to root for. He’s awkward and shy. You can see why Patrizia is taken with him. It is only when Patrizia oversteps her bounds and makes morally questionable decisions to further herself that Maurizio’s behavior towards her changes. Patrizia concocted a plan to send Maurizio’s uncle to prison so that they might have more control over the Gucci empire. After a confrontation with Maurizio’s cousin Paolo in which he makes his rage known, Maurizio becomes cold towards her. He embarrasses her in front of his friends. He blames her for what she has done to his family. He has an affair with a woman he had known much longer. Ultimately, he divorces her, without even giving her the decency of telling her himself.

Something Jacques and Maurizio do have in common in these movies is a complete refusal to take responsibility for their actions. Jacques, as previously mentioned, denied assaulting Marguerite to the end, even when Jean had a knife to his face (this is true to what really happened). To him, it was a consensual encounter. He never believed for a second that he could have raped a woman, because he never truly considered her feelings. He’s stunned, and even hurt, that she would say it was not consensual. Maurizio, who was consistently portrayed as meek and even cowardly throughout the movie, finds it easy to dump all his family’s problems on Patrizia. They forged his father’s signature, they sent his uncle to prison, they snatched away Paolo’s dreams of being a designer. Patrizia certainly got the ball rolling on these plans, but when Maurizio must face the music, he can’t do it. He passes the blame off on her and slams her into a wall and mocks her when she berates him for his timidity. Somehow both men can put the blame for their actions on the women. Marguerite must have been confused, or felt guilty for committing adultery, so she called it rape. Patrizia is a gold-digging hustler like his father said, so she made Maurizio tear his family apart. Never mind the fact that Marguerite put herself at risk by accusing Jacques, or that Maurizio continued his plans to take the company from his family long after he left Patrizia.

Perhaps my favorite moment in House of Gucci is when the scheming lawyer played by Jack Huston finally reveals to Maurizio that he had been vying for his position all along. Maurizio, outmatched and outplayed, with an exasperated smile on his face, says “She was right about you.” Patrizia had clocked Huston’s character from the first act of the movie, spotting him for the wolf in sheep’s clothing that he was. Had Maurizio listened to his wife, he may not have failed spectacularly as CEO. He only sees the truth when he’s smacked in the face with it. Similarly, it took a horrific duel and Jacques’s death for anyone to truly believe Marguerite, even her husband. Had everyone believed Marguerite, and listened to her pleas against a duel, such violence could have been avoided. Maurizio and Jean both charge headfirst into catastrophe. Jean just happened to win his battle.

Ultimately, Marguerite and Patrizia are both pawns in a man’s game in a man’s world. Easy to brush to the side or kick to the curb when they are not needed. They both try to garner the little power they have, through their husbands, and don’t get the result they wanted. Marguerite has no legal standing without Jean. The crime of rape was not a crime against her but a crime against her husband. Jean does pursue legal action, as she wanted, but he uses her accusation for his own revenge, against her wishes. He ends up a hero for his victory in the duel; his wife a mere trophy to show off to the crowd. Patrizia tries to find success and power through her husband’s name. But she flies too close to the sun. She does a lot of the work to further Maurizio, to the detriment of her marriage. He ends their marriage and then reaps the benefits of the dirty work she did for him. Marguerite and Patrizia both made the mistake of thinking they mattered to their husbands more than they actually did. But in Patrizia’s case, she killed him for it.

The protagonist of any story is the most easily scrutinized. The protagonist’s actions and choices drive the story and we as readers and watchers perceive these actions and choices with a critical eye. For this reason, among others, the protagonist of a story is often the most harshly judged. We spend the most time with the protagonist, and the protagonist usually has the most impact on the story, and therefore we as the audience have more to consider about the protagonist than any other character. One of the most strongly criticized protagonists in literature and in film is Frodo Baggins, the hobbit who takes on the quest to destroy The One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, The Lord of the Rings.

Discussion of Frodo often includes jabs such as “useless” and “weak” and “Sam did all the work” (we’ll come back to Sam). Though there are plenty of fans that acknowledge Frodo’s positive attributes, and there are those who fiercely love and defend his character, ripping into Frodo has been a pretty popular thing to do since the books were first published. Tolkien himself made a reference to detractors of Frodo in one of his letters.

“A […] commentator on the point some months ago reviled Frodo as a scoundrel […]. It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, ‘brainwashed,’ and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and self-righteous.”

From this quote we can discern that distaste for Frodo did not begin with the movies in the early 2000s, and that Tolkien was defensive of the character.

Tolkien made it easier for audiences to judge Frodo harshly when he paired him up with Samwise Gamgee (Sam) for the majority of the story. Sam is the indisputable fan favorite. Characters such as Aragorn and Eowyn are also beloved by the fan base, but Sam, it seems, still reigns as the most loved character. Story-wise, it makes complete sense for Frodo and Sam to stay together over the course of the story. They are best friends, and Frodo needed a companion on his perilous journey. It’s also just unrealistic to imagine Sam ever letting Frodo go off by himself, or Frodo being able to deny him. But when Frodo was paired with Sam, that made it all the easier for audiences to disparage Frodo and put Sam on a pedestal.

Sam gets perhaps the most outwardly heroic scenes in the story. Sam slays Shelob, a legendary, giant and evil spider, to save Frodo. Sam takes the Ring when he thinks Frodo is dead to complete the mission. Sam saves Frodo when he is taken by the Orcs into Mordor. Sam carries Frodo up Mount Doom when Frodo can go no further. These are some of the most powerful, heroic moments in the story, and they secure Sam’s fan favorite throne. Sam is undoubtedly Frodo’s rock, his strength. Without Sam, Frodo would not have made it to Mordor. It is a simple truth that Frodo does not have as many grand, heroic scenes as Sam. As a result, Sam comes across as the “strong one” the “brave one” and ultimately, the “better one” between the two.

So how did Tolkien view Sam? Well, a commonly circulated quote, used as proof of Sam’s superiority to Frodo, is when Tolkien referred to Sam as the “chief hero” of the story. Here is that quote:

“I think the simple ‘rustic’ love of Sam and his Rosie […] is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero’s) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the ‘longing for Elves’, and sheer beauty.”

Here Tolkien is discussing an essential part of Sam’s character, that he is ordinary in many ways (he’s a gardener) but that does not negate his sacrifices and bravery. To Tolkien, the ordinary are heroes. Sam exemplifies that in many ways. So Sam is “the chief hero” and that must be it then. Sam is better than Frodo and we can all pack it up and go home, right? Well, no. I think it’s important to look at who Tolkien was inspired by when he wrote Sam.

“My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself“

This is another quote that we see often when discussing Sam, but what I believe is the most important part of this quote is consistently left out. “So far superior to myself.” There it is. Tolkien modeled Sam off of his comrades in World War I. His comrades, who he saw as superior to him. It is no wonder that Sam comes across on the page and on the screen as being the greatest friend and person. Tolkien wrote Sam specifically to be the best of us.

Where does that leave Frodo? Frodo’s moments of heroism aren’t nearly as flashy as Sam’s. His determination to resist the Ring isn’t as showstopping as Sam’s defeating Shelob. His decision to spare Gollum’s life doesn’t make your heart soar the way it does when Sam throws Frodo on his back. But that does not make Frodo’s actions any less heroic because they’re unlikely to make an audience applaud in the theater. When Faramir asked Frodo if he should kill Gollum, and Frodo said no (as well as many other times Frodo spared Gollum) this turned out to be arguably the most important action he took to destroy the Ring, as discussed by Tolkien:

“His exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.”

Had Frodo not had compassion for Gollum, something even Sam lacked, and spared his life, Gollum would not have been there at Mount Doom to fight with Frodo over the Ring and ultimately fall into the lava with it. Gollum had to survive for the Ring to be destroyed. It was Frodo’s compassion that allowed for this.

Frodo’s struggle against the Ring is harder to get a handle on, because it’s entirely internal. We aren’t privy to exactly what the Ring offers Frodo in his many months carrying it, but we do know that Frodo becomes more and more consumed by it as the story goes on. It affects his behavior and we, the audience, know that the longer he has it, the harder it will be for him to destroy it. Despite this, Frodo never wavers from the quest, all the way up until the moment he’s holding the Ring over the lava. Before that moment, he never turns back or changes his mind about destroying the Ring. He pushes forward, all the while the Ring is whispering in his ear, undoubtedly trying to make him change his mind. His resistance to this is commendable as we see many characters fall victim to it. Even Sam is momentarily tempted to take it.

Frodo’s resistance to the Ring and consistent determination to destroy it is commendable. But of course, as every reader of the books or viewer of the movies know, this does not last forever. Frodo, at the last possible moment as he holds the Ring over the lava, succumbs to its power. He takes the Ring for his own. The Ring is only destroyed after Gollum fights him, takes it from him, and falls into the lava with it. Frodo failed in his quest. Or did he? Tolkien had his input.

“I do not think that Frodo’s failure was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum- impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved.”

According to Tolkien, for Frodo to destroy the Ring in this moment would have been impossible. As he had completely spent his body and mind and the Ring was putting the most possible pressure on him in Mount Doom. The implication here is that no one could have destroyed the Ring, at least not under these circumstances. However, because Frodo got the Ring as far as he did, and he previously spared Gollum’s life, Frodo created a situation in which the Ring could be destroyed, it just wasn’t in the way one would have expected: Frodo simply tossing the Ring into the lava. That was not, according to Tolkien, a possible outcome.

“We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man’s effort or endurance falls short of his limits.”

Here we come to what Tolkien believes it means to do good, and what he believes is a “moral failure.” The way Tolkien wrote the end of The Lord of the Rings, we can see that he does not believe doing good necessarily means overcoming evil in its entirety. He also doesn’t believe that if you succumb to evil, or do something immoral, that that is always a moral failure. Rather, he believes that the struggle against evil, pushed to a person’s limits, is moral. That is what Frodo does in the story. He struggled against the Ring and pushed himself physically and mentally, as far as he possibly could all the way to Mount Doom, and he was faced with the near impossible choice at that point. But his failure to destroy the Ring does not make Frodo bad. It was his struggle to get there that makes him good. Also, according to Tolkien, Frodo’s original intentions are important.

“Frodo undertook his quest out of love-to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His only real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that.”

This, I think, may be the most important thing Tolkien ever said in his discussion of Frodo. It reflects Frodo’s journey as well as Tolkien’s moral philosophy. Frodo’s task was not to throw the Ring in the lava and destroy the greatest object of evil, his task was to “do what he could, to try to find away.” That, I believe, is Tolkien’s view of morality. Not overcoming evil every time, but to try. To try to resist evil. To try to be better, even if it’s hard. Frodo did that, in every way possible.

Frodo was written, in large part, to reflect Tolkien’s own moral philosophy. Frodo’s journey is what Tolkien believes it means to do good. When looked at from this perspective, it is not surprising that Frodo is consistently put down and is far less popular than Sam. Frodo in many ways reflects our own flaws. Sam is everything Tolkien admired; the friend we should strive to be. Frodo’s character presents a challenge to us as an audience. To try to find a way to resist evil, even if it’s painful.